


less than a drop in the sunlit sea

by jonphaedrus



Series: i cannot seem to find my way home tonight [3]
Category: Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones
Genre: Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, May/December Relationship, Post-Canon, Terminal Illnesses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-07
Updated: 2019-10-07
Packaged: 2020-11-26 23:30:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20938577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jonphaedrus/pseuds/jonphaedrus
Summary: Their silence was easy in its comfort.





	less than a drop in the sunlit sea

**Author's Note:**

> One of what we all are, Pelly. **Less than a drop in the great blue motion of the sunlit sea.** But it seems some of the drops sparkle, Pelly. Some of them do sparkle! —— from _Camelot_
> 
> fe rarepair week 2019, for bitter|passing|change

The clarion call of birdsong woke him, carried through the grates of the open windows in accompaniment with the first pink light of sunrise. Duessel lay there, eyes closed, basking in the scent of the late spring flowers and the early desert sun that the wind carried to him. He scratched at the base of his stomach, bared by his rucked-up shirt, and thought about nothing.

He was alone, Knoll’s side of the mattress grown cold, and it was this that eventually roused him enough to grope around in the darkness to find where his cane had slid off to. His knee took to the motion unkindly and not unlike a creaking gate, unwilling to unbend even with the heel of his palm pushed to the muscle, adding pressure and heat.

Age laid all low in time. Duessel was no different.

Duessel found Knoll seated on the balcony, curled in his winter cloak with his knees against his chest to combat the mild morning chill. The collar had fallen down just far enough to reveal the pale hollow of his shoulder, his braid come half-undone from his earlier sleep.

The pink light down off of the clouds lent color to Knoll’s pale cheeks, shadowed his long lashes. It caught on the silver that had grown in all up and down his part, twining like fine metal through his hair. In profile the scars of illness were finally starting to slough off, freshly-gained weight filling his face, his shoulders no longer wracked with coughs.

Duessel simply stood and looked at him: all the secrets that hid bottled up and tied between his shoulders, the weights that held him to the earth. Leaning against the doorway, letting the posts take his weight along with his cane, an eternity could have passed in a handspan of seconds and he would hardly have noticed it.

Sometimes, Duessel lost sight of the man he had first gotten to know upon the field of battle ten years hence. A decade had aged Knoll beyond his years, flagging beneath the weight of sins not his own.

“I can hear you thinking,” Knoll said without turning. Duessel huffed under his breath. “What about?”

“How handsome you look.”

Knoll laughed, low and hoarse. He pulled his feet closer, made space for Duessel on the footrest. He came over where invited and sank down onto the open space. Knoll stretched across his lap, leaned back into the chair, his pale eyes hooded.

Duessel had learned the look of insomnia upon Knoll’s face, and he bore it now. “Did you sleep?” he asked, setting one palm on Knoll’s narrow ankle, following the curve of the bone with his thumb.

“Some,” Knoll replied at last, shutting his eyes. The coughs had at last died down in the past week, but there was a hoarseness that rattled about in his lungs, a whisper ragged at the edge of his voice. “The weight of my thoughts rendered it restless.” Duessel waited for him to elaborate, but he did not.

Their silence was easy in its comfort. It was the congenial companionship of two men standing in twilight, enjoying, for however brief a moment longer, the warmth of the sun.

“Today,” Knoll murmured at last, “I find I breathe easy.”

When Duessel looked over, Knoll’s eyes were still shut, his face turned up to let the dawn’s rays cast a golden glow over the fine lines beside his eyes and mouth. His shoulders were relaxed, his breathing even in its pace. He looked, but for a moment, like he was no older than his thirty-three winters, even though his body floundered beneath its own weight more upon every day.

Knoll dozed, Duessel sat, and the world waited for them a few hours more, ease in the bow of the sun as it broke the horizon and colored Jehanna full in red and gold, the sands below them as alive as the sea, beating in time with their heartbeats.


End file.
